An Exile of Ireland: Hugh O’Neill, Prince of Ulster Micheline Kerney Walsh (Four Courts Press, £7.95)

This book is its author’s interpretation of documents from Spanish sources concerning Hugh O’Neill during the period 1602-1616. Previous writers,  such as Sean  Ó Faoláin, had to rely on sparse and hostile English sources which portrayed him during his exile in Rome as a man cowed by defeat, blind, drunk, melancholic, an image these documents … Read more

Early Medieval Ireland 400-1200 Dáibhí Ó Cróinín (Longmans, £15.99)

Longmans have launched the first of a six-volume History of Ireland with a synthesis of the last twenty years of Early Christian scholarship. It is an uneven book, relying for source material primarily on Latin manuscripts, and while it is hardly a serious setback for the progress of early Irish historical studies, it is not … Read more